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ON 



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LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OF THE LATE 



RICHARD H. MENEFEE: 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE LAW SOCIETY OF TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY, 



In the Chapel of Morrison College in Lexington, April \2th, 1841. 



BY THOMAS F. MARSHALL. 




• • . • • 



T*-- 



• * : 

• .• • • "■ 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 



LEXINGTON, KY. 

N. L. & J. W. FINNELL, PRINTERS. 
1841. 



» 






CORRESPONDENCE. 



Transylvania University, ) 
Law Society Hull, April 12, 1841. J 
Thomas F. Marshall, Esq. 

Dear Sir— We are directed by the Transylvania Law Society, 
to request for publication, a copy of your Address on the Life and Character 
of Richard H. Menefee, Esq. deceased, pronounced in the Chapel of Morrison 
College this day. 

With sentiments of profound regard, 

We have the honor to be your obt. servants, 

JOHN W. F1NNELL, ) r . _ , . 

WILLIAM WALLRR, Jr. i Co " u of Transylvania 
JAMES R. GALTKEY, ) Law Soclet V- 



May 14, 1841. 
Gentlemen — Your note of the 12th April was received and the Manuscript 
you desire would have been furnished long since but for severe indi?p^it!r^, 
and the mont- pressing engagements.; Trusting that the delay has been. imm&- 
teTral.ttf.yo'j.}; Lnow place it, sjoph as it is, at your disposal. 

With high respect, &c. 

■ •••.:.•:;••.•''. THOMAS F. MARSHALL. 

J. W.Fmnell, W.'.'Waller, Jr., X R. Galtney. 

H 7 3 2- 1 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Law Societv: 

I am not here to recount in set phrase 
and with that courtesy which the living always pay to the dead, 
the virtues, real or supposed, of one around whose fate, youth 
and interesting private relations alone have cast a transient in- 
terest. I come not merely to acquit me of a duty to one whom 
I personally loved and admired, to weave a fading garland for 
his tomb, or scatter affection's incense over his ashes. Mine is 
a severer task, a more important duty. I stand here gentlemen, 
as a member of a great commonwealth, amidst assembled thou- 
sands of her citizens, to mourn with them the blow sudden and 
overwhelming, which has fallen upon the country. He about 
whose young brows there clustered most of honor — he, around 
whose name and character, there gathered most of public hope — 
the flower of our Kentucky youth, "the rose and expectancy of 
the fair state" lies uprooted. He, who by the unaided strength 
of his own great mind, had spurned from his path each obstacle 
that impeded and rolled back the clouds which darkened his 
morning march — who in his fresh youth had reached an emi- 
nence of fame and of influence, which to a soul less ardent 
might have seemed the topmost pinnacle, but which to him, was 
only a momentary resting place, from whence, with an undaz- 
zled eye and elastic limb, he was preparing to spring still up- 
wards and nearer to the sun of glory which glowed above him; 
while the admiring crowd below were watching with intensest 
interest each movement of his towering step, each wave of his 
eagle wing, 

" Why sudden droops his crest? 
The shaft is sped, the arrow's in his breast." 

Death canonizes a great name and the seal of the sepulchre 
excludes from its slumbering tenant the breath of envy. I might 
fling the reins to fancy and indulge in the utmost latitude of 



panegyric without offence; the praises of she dead fret not the 
living. But I am not here upon an ordinary occasion to pro- 
nounce a pompous eulogy in set terms of a vague and general 
praise. You have directed me to draw the life and character, 
to delineate the very form and figure of the mind of one, whose 
moral likeness you wish to inscribe in enduring and faithful 
colors upon your archives, not only as a memorial of one loved 
and lost, but as an example and model for the study and imita- 
tion of yourselves and successors. It is not a sample of rhetoric, 
but a perpetuation of his image, that you seek, as the monument 
best suited to the subject, as a real and historic standard by 
which the youth of after times may measure and elevate the 
idea and the stature of excellence. And surely, if ever there 
were mirror in which young genius could glass and fashion itself; 
if ever there were mould in which the forming intellect could be 
cast in the just and full proportions of graceful energy and per- 
fect strength; he, of whom we are to speak this day, was that 
mirror and that mould. Would that the artist were equal to 
his work, would that his mind were fully up to the dignity of his 
subject; then indeed would I gladly obey your high command, 
and give to posterity embodied in my land's language, the very 
form and lineament, the breathing attitude, the intrepid port, the 
beaming hope, the dauntless energy of a genius which "poverty 
and disease could not impair, and which death itself destroyed, 
rather than subdued." Ah, had he but have lived! on that bro;:d 
pedestal laid already, he would himself have raised a statue co- 
lossal and historic, an individual likeness, but a national monu- 
ment, than which never did the Grecian chisel, from out the 
sleeping marble, awake a form of grander proportions or of 
more enduring beauty. He meditated such a work and was 
fast gathering round him the eternal materials. Type of his 
country, he sought to mingle himself with her existence and her 
fame and to transmit his name to remote generations as an epit- 
ome of her early genius and her history, and as the most signal 
example of the power of her institutions, not only for the pro- 
duction, but for the most perfect developement of the greatest 
talents and the most exalted virtue. 

Richard H. Menefek, whose death clothed this immediate 
community with mourning, threw a shade over Kentucky, and 



.) 

awakened the sympathies of the whole American public, was 
born in the town of Owingsville, and county of Bath, 4th Decem- 
ber, 1 809. His father, Richard Meneffk, was an early emigrant 
from Virginia. He was a man by trade a potter, and exercised 
his calling for many years in Bath. Although of exceedingly 
limited education and originally of very humble fortune, the 
native strength of his mind and the love of information raised 
him to very respectable attainments in knowledge, while the 
integrity of his character, no less than his sagacity commanded 
the confidence as well as the respect of all who knew him. He 
was repeatedly elected to the legislature of Kentucky and 
served one term in the Senate. The characters and the career 
of distinguished men have sometimes been traced to circumstan- 
ces apparently trifling, which even in infancy have been thought 
to have settled the bent of the mind. The biographer of Na- 
poleon has noted among the earliest and most prominent incidents 
of his infanc} r , that his first play tiling was a miniature cannon, 
with its mimic equipments. From this first impression, or early 
predilection, the indelible image of war may have been stamped 
upon the mind and decided forever the genius and the passions 
of the conqueror of Europe. In 1 809, Kentucky's great Senator 
was fast drawing upon himself the gaze of men. The saffron 
tints of morning had already announced the coming of that orb 
which has since shone forth with such splendor in the eyes of 
the civilized world. The father of our Richard had at one time 
determined to call his son Henry Clay, and indeed the infant 
statesman and orator wore the name for the first two or three 
months of his existence. It was subsequently altered to Richard 
Hickman, from respect to a warm personal and family friend, 
but the boy was apprised of the prcenomen of his infancy and 
fired even in childhood by the fame of his great countryman, 
breathed often to heaven his fervent orison, that he might one 
day equal the eloquence, the greatness and the reputation of Mr. 
Clay. That the love of glory was the master-passion of his na- 
ture, and that sooner or later some event or circumstance must 
have roused it into life and action we cannot doubt, and yet it 
may be, that the simple circumstance we have cited, may have 
marked out the path and determined the object of his ambition. 
That it made a deep impression upon his childish imagination, is 



a veritable and very interesting fact in his boyish biography. 
He was left by his father an orphan at about four years of age 
and an estate never large was almost entirely wrecked by mis- 
management and that bane of widows and orphans, a law suit — 
in which it had been left involved. Richard's utmost inherit- 
ance of worldly goods did not exceed a few hundred dollars. 
He seems till he was about twelve years of age, to have been 
indebted almost exclusively to his mothers instructions for the 
rudiments of knowledge he received. For her he cherished to 
his latest hour the fondest veneration. He was her champion 
in boyhood, for sorrow and misfortune fell fast upon her. It 
was in his mother's defence that the lion of his nature first broke 
out. Incidents might here be related, exhibiting in rare perfec- 
tion the depth of filial pietv and dauntless heroism in a boy of 
fifteen, but they involve circumstances and feelings too delicate 
for a stranger's touch. In proof of the strength and tenderness 
of his private affections, it may here be stated, that after he 
commenced the practice of law, though pressed by the claims of 
his own family, he devoted a portion of his own slender means 
to the support of a brother overwhelmed with personal misfor- 
tunes and an orphan sister, and continued it till his death. At 
twelve years of age, so far as I have been able to learn, he first 
entered a public school. Like steel from flint, the collision of 
other minds struck instant fire from his own. The first com- 
petition brought into full play the passion for distinction, which 
formed the master principle of his nature. His teacher was as- 
tonished at the intense application, surpassing progress and 
precocious genius of the boy. He predicted to his pupil his 
future greatness, exhorted him to perseverance and furnished 
him every facility in his power. With this gentleman, whose 
name was Tompkins, (it should be written in letters of gold,) he 
seems to have remained without interruption for two years, at 
which period his mother married a second time and he was 
removed from school. Clouds and thick darkness gathered 
now, over his fortunes and his darling hopes. At fourteen, 
he was summoned to attend at a tavern bar in Owingsville. But 
the omen of his first name still cheered him on, and the fire 
which had been first kindled within him, could not be extinguish- 
ed. He compromised the matter at home and served at the 



bar or labored in the field during the summer, for the privilege 
of school during the winter months. Even this did not last, for 
want of means, (mark that, ye of more prosperous fortunes;) 
for want of means to defray his tuition fees, this unconquerable 
boy exchanged the character of pupil for preceptor at fifteen 
years of age and taught what he had learned to others for hire 
during the winter months, that he might accumulate a fund with 
which to prosecute his own education thereafter. He continued 
thus till about his sixteenth year; when, in consequence of un- 
pleasant difficulties with his step-father, he was taken to Mount- 
sterling by Mr. Stockton, an intimate friend of his deceased 
father. From this time he seems to have been left to his own 
guidance, and wrestled alone with his fortune. Upon the divis- 
ion of the wreck of the paternal estate, a negro was assigned to 
Richard about the period of his removal from home. He sold 
this slave to his friend, and with the proceeds, together with 
what he had earned as a preceptor, maintained himself at the 
public school in Mountsterling till his eighteenth year, when he 
entered Transylvania as an irregular Junior. The rules of col- 
lege would have excluded him from the privilege of examination 
and debarred him even from a trial for the honors of his class* 
But that discipline which fixes a given time for given accom- 
plishments and deems their attainment impossible, save within 
the limits and in the mode prescribed, was not framed for such 
as he. The hardy orphan who had been tutor and instructor of 
others at fifteen, and absolute and unheeded master of himself at 
sixteen, was not likely to be damped or daunted from his not 
having passed through a technical routine of studies, based upon 
ordinary calculations and framed for ordinary minds. He had 
already trampled upon the legal maxim which fixes one and 
twenty as the age for self-government, already "had his daring 
boyhood governed men." He gazed in scorn upon the artificial 
impediment which would have barred him from academic honors, 
and cleared it at a bound. His intrepid genius, his intense ap- 
plication, and the bold and extra-collegiate range of his informa- 
tion had attracted the eye and the admiration of the celebrated 
President Holley. Through his intercession and influence the 
strict canon of the University was dispensed with in Richard's 
behalf; he was admitted to an examination with his class, and 



8 

bore away the palm. Upon his return to Mountsteriing his funds 
were exhausted and he again became a private tutor while he 
prosecuted the study of law with Judge James Trimble. He 
persevered in his labors and his studies till the year 1830, when 
upon the death of his friend Stockton, whose affairs required the 
superintendance of a lawyer and to whom he held himself bound 
by a debt of gratitude, in his twenty-first year he obtained a 
license to practice and undertook as his first professional act, 
without charge, to settle and arrange the complicated and em- 
barrassed affairs of his friend. In the fall of 1831 he was en- 
abled to attend the law lectures here, when he became a distin- 
guished member of your society. In the spring of 1832 he re- 
ceived the appointment of commonwealth's attorney, and in 
August before he had attained his twenty-third year he was mar- 
ried to the eldest daughter of the late Matthew Jouitt. It is not 
among the least interesting circumstances which concentrate in 
the union of these two orphans, that the dowerless daughter of 
Kentucky's most gifted artist should have found a tutor in her 
childhood every way adequate to form her taste and fashion her 
understanding, and that in the dawning graces of her first wo- 
manhood reflecting back upon its source the light she had bor- 
rowed should have drawn and fastened to her side as friend and 
protector through life, that same boy preceptor from whose pre- 
cocious mind her own had drawn its nutriment and its strength « 
Jouitt and Menefee! what an union of names, what a nucleus 
for the public hopes and sympathies to grow and cluster roundj 
to cling and cleave to. And they are united in the person of a 
boy, a glorious beauteous boy — upon whose young brow and 
every feature is stamped the seal of his inheritance. I have 
seen this scion of a double stock through whose young veins is 
poured in blending currents the double tide of genius and of art. 
Bless thee Jouitt Menefee, and may heaven which has imparted 
the broad brow of the statesman orator along with the painter's 
ambrosial head and glowing eye, may heaven shield and preserve 
thee boy, from the misfortunes of thy house. 

Mr. Menefee retained his appointment, and located at Mount- 
sterling continued the practice of law with extraordinary success 
in the various counties of that mountainous district till August 
1836. when h< returned the member from Montgomery to 



9 

tiie House of Representatives of Kentucky. It was the fortune 
of your speaker to day, to have served in the same body during 
that session, and it was at this period that he first saw and be- 
came acquainted with the illustrious subject of this discourse. 
The impression which Mr. Menefee then made was instantaneous 
and ineffaceable. He was in his twenty-seventh year, but the 
lightness of his hair, his delicate complexion and almost beardless 
face, and a certain juvenile outline of person, made him look to a 
transient observer some years younger than he really was. 1 
knew nothing then, nor till long after, of his private history. He 
stood among his colleagues in legislation, almost an entire stran- 
ger. He was surrounded by no peculiar circumstances or asso- 
ciations of influence or of interest. No pomp of heraldry blazon- 
ed his hitherto obscure name; no hereditary honors glittered 
around his pale brow; no troop of influential connexions or fami- 
ly partisans stood ready to puff him into prompt notice, or to force 
him upon fame. Even the incidents of his young life which would 
have won for his chivalric spirit an admiring and generous sym- 
pathy were unknown. The storms through which his star had 
waded in its ascent, the strife perpetual which he had waged from 
infancy with evil circumstance and most malignant fortune had 
rolled over him unknown or unheeded by that world to whose 
service and applause he had been fighting his way. He came in- 
to the lists unattended, without device, armorial bearing, squire, 
pursuivant, or herald. Entertaining the views which Mr. Mene- 
fee did, it cannot be doubted that he regarded the Legislature of 
Kentucky as an important theatre to him. It was the entrance into 
that temple upon whose loftiest turret his eye had been fastened 
from childhood. The scene was practically at least an entirely 
new one to him. He was well aware, no man more so, of the 
importance of first impressions upon a body constituted as that of 
which he was a member. One would naturally have expected 
from a person situated as he was, great anxiety, not unmixed 
with bashfulness and timidity in his debut. You might have anti- 
cipated too, the selection of some question of great and general 
interest, and the careful and elaborate preparation, by so young 
and aspiring a member, of a speech duly laden with flowers, and 
studded with all the rhetorical gems of trope and figure. No 
such thing. He threw himself easily and naturally, and with ap- 



10 

parent cirelessness into debate for the first time, upon a bill en- 
tirely private in its character and of not the smallest interest to 
the house. No sooner had he risen however, and his bell tones 
vibrated through the hall, than every eye and ear were riveted 
into attention. There was about him an air of practiced ease, a 
sslf-possession, a deliberation, as utterly remote from affectation 
or impudence, as it was entirely free from confusion or timidity. 
He wore the cheek of a boy, and moved with the tread of a vete- 
ran.. There was no impatience for display, no ambitious finery 
no straining after effect about him, but there was a precision and 
clearness in his statement, an acuteness, a strength and clearness 
in his argument, which bespoke a mind not only of the greatest 
original power, but trained in the severest school of investigation, 
and to which the closest reasoning was habitual and easy. He 
seemed to move too, in his natural element, as though he had so 
long and so carefully revolved in his own mind the theatre of pub- 
lic affairs as being the true stage for him, that he stood there al- 
beit for the first time without surprise or anxiety. It was upon a 
motion of his own to reverse a report from the committee of 
courts of justice upon a bill authorising the sale of some infant's re- 
al estate, that he was first heard to speak. The present Gov- 
ernor of the Commonwealth was at the head of the committee, 
and some of the most experienced members of the house, and of 
the ablest professional men in the country were members of it. 
The member from Montgomery attacked their report, with so 
much vivacity and such remarkable ability, that they felt them- 
selves compelled to make a regular and formal defence, which 
they did seriatim, and it is no reflection upon their talent to state 
now, what all felt then to be true, that their young antagonist was 
a match for the whole. This debate and the occasion of it would 
have passed from my memory long since, but that they served to 
develope to my view for the first time, the character and the pow- 
ers of a man evidently marked out for greatness, whose subse- 
quent career was one unbroken series'of splendid successes, whose 
genius then first fairly risen upon the public, within three years 
from that date, shot into the zenith with an horizon stretching to 
the utmost boundary of the American states. After this first ef- 
fort, trifling as would seem the occasion, Mr. Menefee was no 
longer considered in the light of a promising young man. He did 



11 

not climb gradually into favor and influence with the house, but, 
sprang at once and with an elastic ease truly surprising, into the 
position not only of a debater of the highest order, but of a lead- 
ing mind, whose ripened judgement and matured thought render- 
ed his counsels as valuable, as the eloquence in which they were 
conveyed was striking and delightful. He was a member of the 
committee of finance, and reported and carried in the face of the 
most violent opposition, what is usually termed the "equalizing 
law" by which the ordinary revenue without an increase of taxa- 
tion, but by including new subjects, has gained upwards of thirty 
thousand dollars per annum. The debates in the Kentucky le- 
gislature are not reported, and little attention is paid, and little in- 
terest manifested throughout the country in what is passing at the 
capitol in Frankfort. Yet upon the narrower and more obscure 
theatre which he then trod, did Mr. Menefee display during that 
winter, powers and qualities which in Washington would, as they 
afterwards did, have covered him with glory and fixed his name. 
Compelled, by the particular interest which I then represented, 
(being a member from the city of Louisville) to be thrown into 
frequent collision with Mr. Menefee in the debates of the house, 
I had ample opportunity both to know and to feel his intense pow- 
er as a disputant. Attracted powerfully by the whole structure 
and style of the man, I studiously sought occasions for a close and 
critical observation of him. To men curious in such things he 
was a subject altogether worthy of study. Accident threw me 
somewhat into his personal confidence, which furnished better 
opportunities of ascertaining the distinctive traits of his charac- 
ter and the habitual complexion of his mind, than the mere con- 
tests of argument and public discussion would have afforded. In 
the course of the session, he was heard upon every question of 
state policy and always with an attention which showed how 
deep he was in the confidence of the house. Upon a proposition 
to reduce the salaries of the state engineers, to which he was op- 
posed, he took occasion to discuss the system of internal im- 
provement, as it is called, in which he showed that lawyer as he 
was, he had found time to study deeply the sources of nation- 
al wealth, and the principles of public economy. Upon a pro- 
position of his own which he lost, to place the salaries of thejudg. 
es at Louisville upon the same footing with the other jvdges of 



12 

the Commonwealth, he displayed in the most eminent degree the 
peculiar traits of his genius. It was not the discrimination in 
the amount of the salaries to which he objected. It was that 
principle in the law, which virtually made the Commonwealth's 
judges at Louisville to be paid by, and of course to be dependant 
to a certain extent, upon that corporation, which he resisted and 
exposed. But the master effort of his mind that winter, was on 
the bill to repeal the law of 1833 prohibiting the importation of 
slaves. Never yet have I heard or read among all the discussions 
to which that law has given rise, an argument so masterly, so 
statesmanlike, so triumphant as that of Mr. Menefee. Profound- 
ly practical, and standing utterly aloof from the extremes of fa- 
naticism, he displayed the deepest knowledge of the natural foun- 
dations of social prosperity, and the most cautious regard for ex- 
isting institutions. Equally exempt from the rash spirit of politi- 
cal empiricism which would tear the subsisting frame of society 
to pieces, in search of that which is abstractly good, and from 
that worse than cowardice, which shutting its eyes upon what is 
absolutely and demonstrably evil, would deepen and extend it, 
for the wise reason that it is not perfectly curable, that despe- 
rate quackery, which would spread a cancer over the whole bo- 
dy, because it could not be safely extirpated, he neither lauded 
slavery as a blessing, nor dreamed with crazy philanthropists, or 
murderous incendiaries of its sudden and violent extinction. He 
adhered to the law of 18.33 as a mean of checking the increase of 
an evil which could not now be prevented. It is a public, misfor- 
tune, and a drawback upon Mr. Menefee's fame, brilliant as it is, 
that his speeches in the legislature of Kentucky were not pre- 
served. Regarding him, as I h ave already said with the deepest 
interest, and under circumstances very favorable for observation, 
I describe him as he impressed himself upon me. The great cha- 
racteristic of his mind was strength, his predominant faculty, was. 
reason, the aim of his eloquence was to convince. With an ima- 
gination rich, but severe and chaste, of an elocution clear, nerv- 
ous and perfectly ready, he employed the one as the minister, 
and the other as the vehicle of demonstration. He dealt not in 
gaudy ornament or florid exhibition; no gilded shower of meta- 
phors drowned the sense of his discourse. He was capable of 
fervjd invective, vehement declamation, and scathing sarcasm, 



13 

but strength, strength was the pervading quality, and there was 
argument even in his denunciation. "No giant form set forth his 
common might," no stentor voice proclaimed a bully in debate; 
yet did he possess the power of impression, deep, lasting impres- 
sion, of interesting you not only in what he said, but in himself, 
of stamping upon the memory his own image, in the most eminent 
degree, and in the most extraordinary manner, of any man of his 
age whom it has been my fortune to encounter. "Bonum virum 
facile crederes, magnum libenter." Although removed the far- 
thest possible, from the affectation of mystery, or any asserted 
and offensive pretension to superiority over other men, and al- 
though his manner was exempt entirely from the charge of haugh- 
tiness, still as he appeared at that time, he loved not familiarity 
and courted no intimacy. He was bland, courteous, and perfect- 
ly respectful in his intercourse; still there was a distance, an un- 
definable sort of reserve unmixed with pride, but full of dignity, 
keeping frivolity aloof and attracting at, once your curiosity and 
your interest. Upon his forehead, which was broad, and full and 
very commanding, w r ere traced the indisputable lines of intellect 
and genius. His pale and delicate brow was stamped with the 
gravity and the care of premature manhood. About his lip and 
mouth were the slight, but living and indellible traits of a resolved 
and ambitious spirit. The whole countenance was that of a man 
who had suffered and struggled, but who had conquered the past 
and was prepared to grapple fearlessly with the future. But the 
master expression, the natural language which breathed from his 
face, form, step, gesture, and even the almost feminine tone of his 
voice and which contrasted so strangely with the delicacy of the 
wmole, w T as energy, unfainting, indomitable, though curbed and 
regulated energy, which could sustain him through all danger and 
under all fortune, and which would and must bear him on to the 
utmost mark at which his ambition might aim, and to which his 
talents were at all adequate. There was nothing restless or im- 
patient about him. His was deliberate, concentrated, disciplin- 
ed energy. He had that managed calmness of general manner, 
which so often betokens a fiery and excitable temperament, but 
under the most perfect control. Never man w r as more entirely 
master of himself than Mr. Menefee. His conversation corres- 
ponded with and deepened the impression made by his public 



14 

speeches and a close examination of his whole appearance. He 
had all the quickness and penetration of a man of true genius, but 
"without a spark of wildness or eccentricity. There was no 
dreamy idealism, no shadowy romance, no morbid sentimental- 
ism about him. The occasional splendor of his illustrations prov- 
ed him to be sure possessed of an imagination not only grand and 
lofty, but exquisitely sensible of the beautiful and the soft, but it 
was the ally, not the principal; and an ally upon which his sove- 
reign reason, abounding in its own resources, leaned but little and 
drew but seldom. His fancy drew her inspiration from the natu- 
ral fountains around and within him. [t was not even tinged 
with the sickly light of modern fiction. His whole mind was 
eminently healthy. His was the seriousness of determination, 
unmixed with gloom or melancholy. The purity of his language, 
which was remarkable for its beauty as well as its precision, 
declared a mind imbued with elegant letters, but there was an 
antique severity in his taste, a marble firmness as well as smooth- 
ness in his style, which spoke of the hardihood and muscle of the 
Grecian masters, those first teachers and eternal fountains of po- 
etry and eloquence.* But neither Mr. Menefee's conversation, 
nor his attainments, nor his talents, eminent as they all were, sur- 
prised me so much as the matured and almost rigid tone of his 
character, the iron control which he exercised over himself, the 
cool, practical and experienced views which he took of the "world, 
and the elevation, consistency and steadiness of his purposes. 
These were the qualities which made his talents useful; these 
were the qualities which, young as he was, gave him such abso- 
lute hold and command of the public confidence; these were the 
qualities which adapted him to the genius and bound him to the 
hearts of his countrymen, without which he might have been bril- 
liant, but never could have been great. 

He had early ranged himself with that great party in politics, 
whose protracted and arduous struggles have at last found their 
consummation, and whose principles have been ratified by the 
judgment of the nation in the election of General Harrison to the 
presidency. He belonged to that class of minds, who in every 

* That he was familiar with the historians ar.d orators of antiquity, porficu- 
larly of Athens, I am enabled to state of my own knowledge. Those who knew 
him at college, say that he won his academic honors by his superiority in Math- 
ematics and the languages. 



15 

country and under every form of government, are found the un- 
flinching advocates of rational and regulated liberty, a liberty 
founded in principles fixed and eternal, and which is only safe 
under the shield and cover of a law changeless and inviolable by 
the government, equally supreme and binding upon the rulers and 
upon the people. The imperial maxim "voluntas principis habct 
vigorem legis" he rejected utterly. He loathed despotism in all 
its forms, and wherever lodged, whether in the hands of one, the 
many, or the few. Born in a monarchy, he would have died as 
Hamden died, in the assertion of legal limitations upon the prero- 
gative. Born in a republic, he clung to the constitutional re- 
strictions upon the rapacious passions of faction. He regarded 
the courtier cringing at the footstool of a throne, and the dema- 
gogue lauding the absolute power of a mob, as equally the foes of 
freedom, and the just objects of patriot execration. He under- 
stood the term people as comprehending every interest and every 
individual and looked upon that system alone as free, which pro- 
tected each against the arbitrary power even of the whole. He 
regarded government as something framed for the defence of the 
weak against the strong, of the few against the many and con- 
sidered human rights as only safe, where fixed laws and not the 
fluctuating caprices of men and parties were supreme. Strength 
and numbers are absolute in a state of savage nature, they need 
no laws nor magistracy for their support. The rights of the 
weak and the few, can only be secured by the incorporation of 
the eternal principles of liberty and justice in a constitution im- 
passable to power and immutable by party. The splendid popu- 
larity of a favorite chief, blinded not his reason, the roar of tri- 
umphant faction deafened not his conscience, the proscribing ge- 
nius of a power which punished with inexorable severity, or re- 
warded with unbounded profusion, appalled not his moral cour- 
age, nor shook for one moment his native integrity. Young, 
poor, talented and aspiring, still he followed where his principles 
led him and battled long on the side of a feeble and almost over- 
whelmed minority of his countrymen. To the cause which he 
espoused, through all its fortunes he adhered with unbroken faith 
and consistency and lived just long enough to witness its final 
and complete success. 

Mr. Menefee passed from the legislature of Kentucky into the 



16 

national councils, where he took his seat in the lower house of 
Congress at the call session of 1 837. He is said to have exhibited 
during the canvas-?, extraordinary powers of popular eloquence, 
and an unequalled grace and facility in mingling with the great 
body of the people, demonstrating thereby the versatility of a 
mind whose strength alone 1 have been contemplating. The 
same destiny (for it seemed no less) attended him in Congress, 
which had marked his entrance upon state legislation. There 
were no gradations in his congressional history. He comprehend- 
ed at once and as if by instinct, the new scene in which he was 
called to act; and no sooner did he appear, than he was recognis- 
ed as a statesman and a leader. The intrepid boldness of his cha- 
racter and precocious strength of his genius seem to have smitten 
all parties with astonishment. Some of the leading men of the 
political party to which he was opposed, pronounced him the 
most extraordinary man of his age, who had till then, appeared in 
Congress. He encountered hostility in his upward flight, (when 
did soaring genius fail to do it?) and meaner birds would have 
barred him from his pathway to the skies. With crimsoned beak 
and bloody talons, he rent his way through the carrion crew and 
moved majestically up to bathe his plumage in the sun. Never 
did a career more dazzlingly splendid open upon the eye of young 
ambition, than burst upon Mr. Menefee. The presses teemed 
with his praise, the whole country was full of his name; yet did 
he wear his honors with the ease of a familiar dress. He trod the 
new and dizzy path with a steady eye and that same veteran step 
which was so eminently his characteristic. Around his path there 
seem to have been thrown none of those delusions, which haunt 
the steps of youth and inexperience* All was stern reality and 
truth. He maintained his character undimmed, and his position 
unshaken till the end of his term, and then this wonderful man im- 
posed upon himself, his spirit and his ambition, that iron control 
of which I have spoken and voluntarily retired from a theatre the 
most elevated and commanding, upon which genius and ambition 
like his could engage in the gigantic strife for undying honor. 
At twenty-nine years of age, Mr. Menefee found himself up- 
on a summit to which the dreams of youth and hope could 
scarce have aspired. He alone seemed neither astonished nor 
confounded by the height to which he had arisen. In 1837 an 



17 

obscure young lawyer, scarce known beyond the precincts oi 
his native highland district; in 1839 he stood forth on the 
world's great theatre in acknowledged greatness, the predictions 
of his first tutor realized, the prayer of his childhood granted. He 
stood on that eminence so long and so gloriously occupied by the 
man whose name he once bore, and whose fame had been the pil- 
lar of fire by which he guided his footsteps through the long, dark, 
perilous and unfriended night of his boyhood, and he stood there 
at an age which threw even that example into the shade. The 
draught which he drank so far from intoxicating his understand- 
ing, served only to refresh and invigorate his spirit for the work 
set before him. He surveyed calmly from the height on which 
he stood, the prospect stretched beneath him, he quaffed the full 
beams of the sun of glory which glowed above him, then turning 
to the gentle flower at his side, which he had vowed to shelter 
and defend, to her who had loved and trusted him in obscurity 
and penury, before the world now ready to c!ohim homage, had 
learned his transcendent talents and inestimable worth and fold- 
ing her, all bright and blushing in the light of her husband's glory 
to his bosom, he descended without a sigh, to vindicate her confi- 
dence and toil for her support. 

He was now, though steeped in poverty, in the full possession 
of fame. He was known universally. Over his character there 
hung no doubt nor shadow. He had but to select his ground, 
to choose his theatre. His talents, his acquirements, his habits, 
all fitted him eminently for the bar. A self-made scholar, he 
was of indefatigable application — with a mind of singular acute- 
ness naturally and now much enlarged and strengthened by the 
great topics it had grasped and the powerful collisions into 
which it had been thrown, he was peculiarly fitted for the largest 
and most comprehensive views of jurisprudence. Of an integri- 
ty stainless as the untrodden snow and without one vice to con- 
sume his time or warp his career, he was sure to devote himself 
to the interests of his clients. In the summer of 1839 he located 
himself in Lexington. There was no dreary noviciate with him. 
He stepped into the forum armed at all points, and business 
flowed in upon him in a full and rich tide. Never did any man 
occupy such a position in Kentucky as did Mr. Menefee in the 

opening of his professional career in Lexington. The public 
3 



18 

sympathies rallied around to cheer and to support hirn in a man- 
mer utterly unknown in any other case. Each step of his pro- 
gress but deepened the interest and vindicated more triumphant- 
ly the opinion entertained of him. Men flocked in crowds to 
hear him speak, his counsel was sought and relied on, and his 
services engaged whenever it was practicable at points distant 
from the scene of his immediate operations. At a period of life 
when most men are just rising into business, he was steeped, 
actually overwhelmed with the weightiest, most honorable and 
most profitable causes. The sun of prosperity broke out upon him 
with a warmth and brilliancy entirely without example. All 
difficulties had vanished from before him. In the past he found 
nothing with which to upbraid himself. The rough road through 
which he had journeyed from childhood was marked throughout 
with trophies of his triumphant spirit. His country regarded 
him as public property, and waiting with fond impatience the 
attainment of that pecuniary independence which his erect and 
honorable nature deemed essential to his character, stood ready 
with open arms to receive him into her service and crown him 
with her choicest honors. Fortune w r as absolutely within his 
grasp. He was the slave of honor, not the drudge of avarice. 
It was independence that he sought, independence for himself 
and his nestlings. He had tasted the bitter fruits of early pover- 
ty and although he had triumphed he would not doom his little 
ones to their father's struggles and sufferings. He must have at- 
tained the object of his pursuit even before he had reached his 
manhood's prime, and then he could have turned him again with- 
out a crime to the pursuits of ambition, again have mounted the 
solar heights from whence his moral nature had forced his intel- 
lectual down. For one short year Mr. Menefee's delicate frame 
sustained the fiery energies of his mind. In the spring of 1 840 
in reply to a note from myself on professional business, he al- 
luded to the decline of his health in a tone of sadness, not dis- 
pondence — his was a soul that never deponded — which struck 
me as ominous and prophetic. .Disease had indeed fastened its 
fangs upon his body, its force was vain against his mind. With 
rapidly declining health he persevered in his business till in Sep- 
tember in a case of vast magnitude, in which Messrs. Clay and 
Wickliffe were both employed against him, he put forth for the 



19 

last time his immortal energies at the bar. Like the Hebrew 
giant his last effort was the greatest. Oh, would to God that ho 
had been or could have been induced to spare himself! But the 
occasion had come, and the ruling passion strong in death, broke 
out with irresistible force to throw its radiance over his funeral 
pile. Ambition has been called the last infirmity of noble minds. 
To me it seems to constitute their essence and their strength. 
I mean not the love of power, but that higher ambition, the love, 
the yearning after that imperishable fame, which shines through 
far generations and with an increasing light over the memory of 
great and glorious talents, greatly and gloriously exerted in the 
cause of justice and mankind. This appeared to me to be the 
master passion of Mr. Menefee's soul. He must have been 
conscious of an extraordinary fate and an extraordinary genius. 
He must have appeared to himself as he certainly did to all oth- 
ers, a man marked out from birth for great actions and the most 
splendid distinction. What had he not achieved? His friends 
may challenge the history of this country for a parallel. I have 
said that I had observed him closely in 1836. I have had inti- 
mate opportunities since his retirement from Congress. I have 
conversed with him since his disease was distinctly developed 
and the qualities which sir\ ■< me with so much force upon our 
first acquaintance appeared j > gathei strength with time. There 
was an unsparing intensity in his mind, a concentration of the 
whole isqbI upon his pursuits, a haste, a rapidity, as though he 
feared the sun of life should go down ere the goal assigned to 
his genius had been attained. Was he conscious, (such a sus- 
picion has sometimes flashed across me, and from remembered 
conversations gathered strength,) could he have been conscious 
that the seeds of early death were implanted in his original con- 
stitution, and was it this which spurred his fiery soul to such 
gigantic and unpausing strides upon his road to greatness? 
Himself at all events he did not and he would not spare. 
This was his only crime; the generous marty; for this and this 
alone can his country reproach him. Perchance the opportuni- 
ty of measuring himself with that great genius, whom he had pro- 
posed originally as his standard, struck upon his heroic tempera- 
ment, and roused the poetry of his nature, as being a meet finale 
to a life like his. Be that as it may, he dashed at the opportunity 



20 

us new-fledged eaglets dash into the sun. He did measure him- 
self and, in that effort, pouring forth his genius and his life, reach- 
ed the consummation of his first wishes, the utmost point of his 
childhood's prayer. He was measured and found a match for one 
whose thunders long have shaken the American Senate and who 
was erst the monarch of the forum. Mr. Menefee sunk gradual- 
ly from September. His waning life sunk, not his spirit. When 
apprised at last that his hour had arrived, "Brief summons," was 
the reply, and he manned himself to die with dignity. His sense 
of duty, the energy and collectedness of his nature and his cau- 
tious regard for others, were strikingly manifested by the last act 
of his life. He made his will, executed a mortgage to indemnify a 
friend who was responsible for him and ere the next sun had risen, 
his own had set forever. 

Thus perished in the thirty second year of his life, Richard H. 
Menefee, a man designed by nature and himself, for inevitable 
greatness. A man of the rarest talents and of the most command- 
ing character. A man whose moral qualities were as faultless, as 
his intellectual constitution was vigorous and brilliant. A man to 
whose advancing eminence there was no limit but the constitution 
of :is country, had not the energies of his mind proved too mighty 
fc the material elements which enclosed them. 

"'Twas his own genius gave the final blow, 
And helped to plant tut. wound that laid him 1 
So the struck Eagle stretched upon the j... 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, 
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart. 
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel. 
And the same plumage that had warmed his nest, 
Drank the last life-drop from h:s bleeding breast." 



EjyuTCM.— On ISth page, 3rd line from top, for might read "height" 



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